BCL 'Excess' at Bhashani Univ

56 teachers quit admin positions

Fifty-six teachers of Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University in Tangail yesterday resigned from their administrative posts after some Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) leaders of the university allegedly misbehaved with two of them.

The teachers, including two regent board members, four deans, four provosts and 14 departmental chairmen, among others, submitted their resignation to the university's registrar, Touhidul Islam, around noon, campus sources said.

The incident happened when some BCL leaders forced the two teachers of the Physics department -- Anwar Hossain and Mohiuddin Tasnim -- to let a student take a third-year exam, although she had failed the department's 2nd year semester finals.

When the two teachers told them she could not take the exam as she had failed the last semester test, the BCL men allegedly hurled abuses and even tried to assault them, sources claimed.

Later, the teachers relented and the student took the exam.

The BCL men involved are -- Sajib Talukder, president of the university unit of BCL, Imran Miah and Adrita Panna, both its vice-presidents and Jabir Iqbal, its joint-secretary, campus sources said.

Meanwhile, several BCL men protested the publishing of the results a day before the next semester's exams, terming it a violation of university ordinance.

The department had published the 2nd year's second semester exam results on Saturday and the 3rd year's first semester exams started the very next day, they added.

"The results are supposed to be published two weeks after the exams as per the university ordinance. However, the results of the 2nd year's second semester exams were published after seven months and the day before the 3rd year's first semester exams began," Sajib, the BCL leader, said.

“One of the teacher's had made an inappropriate proposal to her, which she rejected, and that's why she was failed, so we made her take the exam,” he claimed.

He also denied misbehaving with the teachers and said that it was “just an altercation”.

The university teachers' association held an emergency meeting at 4:00pm that day and, as per the decision made at the meeting, they lodged a complaint with the vice-chancellor (VC) in this regard, demanding punishment of four BCL leaders, members of the university teachers' association said.

The VC then held a meeting with the teachers and the BCL leaders at 7:00pm that night, at his conference room.

Following the meeting, the teachers resigned from all of their administrative posts as they did not get a positive outcome from the meeting, Dr Muhammad Shahin Uddin, president of the university teachers' association, said.

After the exam, BCL men, along with other students, submitted a memorandum to the VC, demanding the enforcement of the university ordinance.

Contacted yesterday, Prof Mohammad Alauddin, vice-chancellor of the university, said that he held a meeting with the regent board to take a decision regarding punishment of those involved.

A decision was taken at the meeting, but it would not be publicised now right now, he said.

Speaking to The Daily Star around 8:40pm yesterday, Shahin Uddin said the board heard their allegations against the BCL leaders and later took a decision regarding their punishment, adding that it, however, had not been officially disclosed to them.